1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to creating a secondary investor's market for fantasy sports or stock market teams and, more particularly, to a method and systems by which an owner of a fantasy sports team or fantasy stock market portfolio can offer for sale all or a percentage of their fantasy team at an auction or at a specified price, and receive offers from potential investors, where investors in a team share in the prize winnings of the team in the league in which it competes.
2. Description of the Related Art
Fantasy sports leagues have grown in popularity as more of the world's population has gained access to the internet, and more people have constant connectivity via smart phones, tablets and other mobile internet devices. In a typical fantasy sports league, team owners each create a virtual team consisting of players from an equivalent real sports league, and the fantasy teams compete against each other based on the actual game performance of the players in the real sports league. For example, in a fantasy football league, teams consist of various position players from the National Football League (NFL), and after NFL games are played each week, the fantasy teams receive points based on the passing performance of their quarterback, the rushing performance of their running backs, the receiving performance of their wide receivers and tight ends, etc.
Fantasy stock markets function similarly to fantasy sports team leagues, except that in fantasy stock markets, a virtual portfolio consisting of stocks, bonds, mutual funds, or other market-driven securities is evaluated against other portfolios based on actual market performance.
In both fantasy sports and fantasy stock market leagues, team owners pay a fee to enter a team in the league, and prizes are awarded at season's end, and in some cases also periodically throughout the season (e.g., weekly), based on the performance of the fantasy team or portfolio. Some people take these fantasy leagues very seriously, and spend considerable time analyzing which players to select for their team or which stocks to select for their portfolio, with the intention of winning prize money exceeding their up-front league fees. Thus, a fantasy sports/stock team which competes within a league that offers prizes is an asset to its owner. Like any other asset, there should be a way to liquidate the fantasy team—that is, to offer it up for sale or investment. A suitable outlet to do this does not currently exist as it does for most other assets.